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Dessert

Creamed Grapes and Oranges

A dessert of grapes and orange segments coated in a sweet fondant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,771 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Creamed Grapes and Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut grapes from the bunch, leaving long stems.

  2. Peel oranges, separate the segments, and place them round side down on a plate to dry.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  2. Boil the syrup slowly until it forms a soft ball when tested.

  3. Dip fingers in ice water. Dip fingers into the syrup. Rub the fingers together to check consistency.

  4. Remove the syrup from heat.

  5. Pour the syrup onto a greased platter.

  6. Let the syrup cool.

  7. Stir the syrup until the mixture stiffens.

Make the fondant and coat

  1. Place the stiffened mixture in a small saucepan over boiling water. Stir until creamy.

  2. Add water if the mixture is too thick.

  3. Dip grapes and orange segments into the fondant.

  4. Place the coated grapes and orange segments on greased paper.

  5. Store the finished dessert in a cool, dry place.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + grapetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the syrup that sets into a soft, creamy fondant coating.
Grapes
Provide the fruit base that is coated in the fondant.
Oranges
Provide the citrus segments that are coated in the fondant.

The step that matters

Checking the soft-ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the soft-ball stage before cooling and stirring. If it is boiled too little or too far, the fondant will be too thin to coat or too hard to stay creamy.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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